Brought to You by www.SEPP.org, The Science and Environmental Policy Project

Quote of the Week “The formulation of a problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and marks real advances in science.” – Albert Einstein

Despite oil accounting for a whopping 90% of Venezuela’s export earnings, President Maduro, a fervent supporter of the Paris Agreement, has courageously put principle before profits by implementing his version of a new green deal. Maduro has eliminated the capitalist exploiters from his nation’s oil industry, and replaced them with loyal army officers who are rapidly dismantling the infrastructure left behind by the capitalists.

Soldiers are taking over Venezuela’s oil industry, and the country with the world’s biggest oil reserves is falling further behind

Brought to You by www.SEPP.org, The Science and Environmental Policy Project

By Ken Haapala, President

Quote of the Week:“On what principle is it that with nothing but improvement behind us, we are to expect nothing but deterioration before us?” – Lord Macaulay, [H/t Matt Ridley]

Number of the Week:Up to a 50% increase in efficiency?On to Chile: Some seem to be disappointed with the outcome of the 24th Conference of Parties (COP-24) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Katowice, Poland, in a coal mining district. Rather than adopting hard, fast rules for the implementation of the Paris Agreement, the delegates adopted vague generalities and promised to do more. Reading through the “bureaucratic speak,” of the concluding remarks by the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, read by Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, the stated goals were not accomplished. The Secretary General wrote:

“I’d first like to thank the Presidency of the COP for the enormous efforts it deployed to organize this 24th session in Katowice, Poland.

Quote of the Week: “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” — Attributed to Abraham Lincoln

Number of the Week:Minus 211,000 bb/d

The Persistent Sun: In his first blog post in ScienceBits for some time, Nir Shaviv, Chairman, Racah Institute of Physics, describes his brief presentation to Environment committee of the German Bundestag. The invitation was quite a surprise, because Shaviv is a climate “skeptic” meaning he does not believe carbon dioxide (CO2) is the primary driver of climate change – the sun is. Shaviv makes another important distinction between his work and the work of global warming promoters of CO2-caused warming such as the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its US followers, the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). As Shaviv states:

G20 nations still led by fossil fuel industry, climate report finds

Climate action is way off course in all but one of the world’s 20 biggest economies, according to a report that shows politicians are paying more heed to the fossil fuel industry than to advice from scientists.

Among the G20 nations 15 reported a rise in emissions last year, according to the most comprehensive stock-take to date of progress towards the goals of the Paris climate agreement.

At the suggestion of a commenter on my last post, I’m taking a look at a very destructive and pointless piece of proposed legislation. This is the “Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act“, which is subtitled “The Market-Based Climate Solution”. It’s proposed by Reps. Deutch (D), Rooney (R), Delaney (D), Fitzpatrick (R), and Crist (D).

The text of the proposed legislation is here, and the Press Release is here.